☕ Google Gemini gains ground on ChatGPT, xAI pays gamers $100 an hour to train Grok & LinkedIn sues company scraping millions of profiles.
Bezos predicts gigawatt data centers in space & What to expect at OpenAI’s DevDay 2025,
Comets smell like rotten eggs.
Technically, it’s hydrogen sulfide, but still, space is less “mystical wonder” and more “blocked sewer.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks:Investor data room guide, redefining target markets, 2025 DORA AI report, SaaS valuation trends, B2B marketing in 2026, pitching VCs right.
OpenAI acquires AI finance app Roi to boost personalized consumer AI.
Bezos predicts gigawatt data centers in space.
Google Gemini gains ground on ChatGPT.
Discord breach leaks user data and photo ID.
LinkedIn sues company scraping millions of profiles.
xAI pays gamers $100 an hour to train Grok.
What to expect at OpenAI’s DevDay 2025, and how to watch it.
Sam Altman says Sora will add ‘granular,’ opt-in copyright controls.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Investor data room guide & templates for founders. (Link)
How to define your actual target market, which probably isn’t traditional demographics and firmographics. (Link)
How developers are really using AI: Inside the 2025 DORA Report. (Link)
SaaS valuation multiples: 2015-2025. (Link)
B2B Marketing in 2026: Distribution is the Monopoly. (Link)
The Right Way To Pitch VCs And Accelerators (And Why Most Founders Get It Wrong). (Link)
AI Investment Is Starting to Look Like a Slush Fund. (Link)
Why investors don’t care about your business. (Link)
The Mac App Flea Market. (Link)
Fund maths for dummies. (Link)
The quality of AI-assisted software depends on the unit of work management. (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Significo, an Austin, TX-based health AI and digital therapeutics company, closed its Series B financing round of undisclosed amount. The round was led by JSTAR Capital Investments’ Horizon Fund II, a premier growth investor in healthcare innovation.
Cirrus Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based ocular immunology-focused biotech company, closed an $11m seed financing. The round was led by ClavystBio, with participation from Polaris Partners and SEEDS.
DualEntry, a NYC-based provider of an AI-native ERP platform, raised $90m in Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures with participation from GV (Google Ventures), Contrary, and Vesey Ventures. This brings total funding raised to over $100m in the last 15 months.
DEXA, a Dayton, OH-based autonomous drone delivery company, closed a $15M Seed funding round. The round, raised in three stages (2021, 2023 and 2025), each totaling $5M, was led by G2A Investment Partners, with participation from Venture 53 and Tech Square Ventures’ Engage Fund.
Supabase, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a postgres development platform, raised $100M in Series E funding at a $5 Billion valuation. The round was led by Accel and Peak XV with participation from Figma Ventures and others.
Moonlake AI, a San Francisco, CA-based artificial intelligence research lab, raised $28M in Seed funding. Backers included AIX Ventures, Threshold, NVIDIA Ventures, Jeff Dean (Chief Scientist at Google Research), Steve Chen (Founder of YouTube), Naval Ravikant (Founder of AngelList), Ian Goodfellow (Inventor of GANs), Guillermo Rauch (Founder of Vercel), alongside executives from Hugging Face, Stability AI, Deepmind and OpenAI.
PEAK:AIO, a Manchester, UK-based software company building storage systems for AI workloads, raised £3.7M in funding. The round was led by Pembroke, alongside NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance which is managed by Praetura Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II (NPIF II), and a Silicon Valley investor.
OpenSolar, a San Francisco, CA-based software platform serving more than 25,000 solar installer businesses in over 160 countries, raised $20M in equity funding. Backers included Titanium Ventures, Google, 2150, and other investors.
Serenis, a Milan, Italy-based company dedicated to improving access to mental health and wellbeing services, received $12M in funding. The round was led by Angelini Ventures and CDP Venture Capital.
Leyden Laboratories, a Leiden, the Netherlands-based biotechnology company developing nasal sprays, raised €30M in equity funding. The round was led by European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund and Invest-NL.
Advisor.com, a Charleston, SC-based provider of a platform supporting how individuals discover and receive financial advice, raised $9M in Seed funding. The round was led by Walkabout Ventures, with participation from Long Ridge Private Equity Partners Founder and Managing Partner Jim Brown.
Significo, an Austin, TX-based health AI and digital therapeutics company, closed its Series B financing round of undisclosed amount. The round was led by JSTAR Capital Investments’ Horizon Fund II, a premier growth investor in healthcare innovation.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Wave Function Ventures, a California-based deep tech VC firm, raised $15.1 million for its debut fund. Founded by aerospace engineer and former SpaceX leader Jamie Gull, the fund will back 25 early-stage startups in areas like aerospace, robotics, and nuclear energy. Gull previously co-founded Talyn Air (acquired by Ampaire) and invested in companies like Boom Supersonic and Varda. Backers include high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and unnamed anchor LPs.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
OpenAI acquires AI finance app Roi to boost personalized consumer AI
OpenAI acquired Roi, an AI-powered personal finance app, with only CEO and co-founder Sujith Vishwajith joining the company. Roi will shut down operations by October 15.
The move aligns with OpenAI’s growing focus on personalized consumer AI — following acqui-hires like Context.ai, Crossing Minds, and Alex.
Roi’s adaptive AI philosophy fits OpenAI’s push into consumer products like Pulse, Sora, and Instant Checkout, as it builds apps that feel more human, personalized, and engaging.
Bezos predicts gigawatt data centers in space:
Jeff Bezos predicts that within 20 years, companies will construct enormous gigawatt data centers in space, where constant solar power and easier cooling offer an edge over Earth-based facilities.
Uninterrupted by clouds or night, solar panels in Earth orbit could provide consistent energy, while the extreme cold of space offers a straightforward way to cool the powerful server equipment.
The project is commercially unfeasible today because launching thousands of metric tons of solar panels and radiators would require well over 150 launches and cost tens of billions of dollars.
Google Gemini gains ground on ChatGPT:
Google Gemini is gaining ground in the market, with its share of generative AI traffic more than doubling from 6.5 percent to 13.7 percent over the last twelve months.
Although ChatGPT still commands the market, its share of generative AI traffic has dropped from 87.1 percent to 73.8 percent, showing a clear decline in its overall dominance.
The rest of the market remains fragmented, with competitors like DeepSeek, Perplexity, Grok, Claude, and Microsoft’s Copilot each holding less than four percent of the generative AI traffic.
Discord breach leaks user data and photo IDs
Hackers compromised a third-party customer service provider, exposing Discord users’ personally identifying information like real names, usernames, email addresses, and other contact details provided to the support team.
The attackers also gained access to photos of government-issued identification documents and partial billing info, which included payment type, purchase history, and the last four credit card digits.
The incident also compromised IP addresses, plus the full messages and attachments that people sent to Discord’s support agents when they were seeking help with their accounts.
LinkedIn sues company scraping millions of profiles
LinkedIn filed a lawsuit against software company ProAPIs, accusing it of operating millions of fake accounts to scrape member data and then sell the information to third-party customers for a fee.
The court filing claims ProAPIs creates thousands of fake accounts daily to evade detection, allowing it to copy user information that is located behind the social media platform’s password wall.
ProAPIs allegedly charges clients up to $15,000 per month for the scraped data while also using LinkedIn’s trademark to falsely suggest that its product is endorsed by the social network.
xAI pays gamers $100 an hour to train Grok
Elon Musk’s xAI is hiring a “Video Games Tutor” to train the Grok chatbot on video game concepts, mechanics, and generation, paying between $45 and $100 per hour.
The position requires proficiency in game design or computer science and the ability to analyze gaming content using proprietary software, not just experience as a proficient gamer.
This job can be fully remote for people with strong self-motivation, a surprising work-from-home option for an Elon Musk company that also comes with medical coverage benefits.
What to expect at OpenAI’s DevDay 2025, and how to watch it
OpenAI’s third annual DevDay kicks off Oct 6 in San Francisco with over 1,500 attendees and a keynote from Sam Altman, followed by a fireside chat with Apple designer Jony Ive.
The event may feature updates on OpenAI’s rumored AI browser, device collaboration with Ive, and potential GPT Store announcements.
The keynote will stream live on OpenAI’s YouTube at 10 a.m. PT; other sessions — including Greg Brockman’s “Developer State of the Union” — will be posted later that day.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
Sam Altman says Sora will add ‘granular,’ opt-in copyright controls
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that Sora will introduce “opt-in” copyright controls, reversing its earlier opt-out approach for rightsholders.
The update will give studios and creators more control over how their characters are used, allowing them to specify permissions or prohibit use entirely.
Altman also hinted at a new monetization model for Sora, potentially including revenue sharing with rightsholders as the app continues its viral rise.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
All-In-One VC Interview Preparation Guide: With a leading investors group, we have created an all-in-one VC interview preparation guide for aspiring VCs. Don’t miss this. (Access Here)
ESG Intern - ESG Enterprise | UK - Apply Here
Senior Associate, Vertical AI - Primary | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Capital Oven | India - Apply Here
Capital Formation Associate - B Capital Group | USA - Apply Here
Trade Operations Lead - Manhattan Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
VP of Fundraising - Scale Asia Venture | Japan - Apply Here
Research Analyst - Positive Sum | USA - Apply Here
Fund Operations Associate - TNB Aura | Singapore - Apply Here
Analyst - Nightdragon | USA - Apply Here
Valuation & Investment Data Analyst - Techstar | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Rocket Capital | India - Apply Here
Investor - AI Tools - Samsung next | USA - Apply Here
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